Francis Daniel Pastorius and the Northern Protestant Transatlantic World

• Authors: Andrew L. Thomas
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In 1683 Francis Daniel Pastorius became the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, the first German settlement in colonial North America. He and several prominent German Pietists in Frankfurt originally wanted to follow in William Penn's wake by setting up a "godly community" in America. Although it is generally recognized that the works of Jan Amos Comenius, Jacob Böhme and Johann Valentin Andreae influenced the Frankfurt Pietists, very little has been done on addressing how much impact Rosicrucianism and Behmenism had on Pastorius's late Renaissance hopes of utopian renewal and eschatological fears. Through an examination of Pastorius's commonplace book the Beehive, this paper contends that the Rosicrucian and Behmenist influences on Pastorius were critical in motivating his colonizing efforts and elucidate his perspectives dealing with alchemy, astrology, and his relationship with Swedish settlers that he encountered.

Keywords

EN

Rosicrucianism; Behmenism; Transatlantic World; Francis Daniel Pastorius; Germantown

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Acta Comeniana (International review of Comenius studies and early modern intellectual history)
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 28
• Pages: 95-126
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Andrew L. Thomas

• Acta Comeniana, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic